Item

Alberta and Bigfoot

Title (Dublin Core)

Alberta and Bigfoot

Description (Dublin Core)

This article tackles a plethora of issues facing Albertans today, one of the most prominent being a lackluster b-tier animated series on Netflix which seriously threatens our economic and social stability. Jokes aside, I’ve chosen to add this document to the archive as it truly does represent the embarrassing state of affairs that Alberta finds itself in today; as a result of this conservative government’s primacy of privatization and a tax-payer fed propaganda machine which has mythologized the idea of conservative fiscal responsibility. Furthermore, this document sheds light on the attempt to revitalize an oil extraction method from the 1950s which involves detonating a nuclear device underground as a means to boil bitumen. Needless to say, these campaigns to ‘protect’ Albertan economic interests through propaganda have done the absolute opposite, furthermore this draws attention to the very real threat the UCP poses to the environmental stability of Alberta. More so, this news article touches upon the monopolization of both the oil and gas industry and telecommunications networks underneath the UCP regime, resulting in job losses and the flight of several companies from the province – companies which have undoubtedly received tax breaks and corporate donations of tax payer dollars from Kenny’s government.

Another point, I feel like this is a very poignant topic currently within the political sphere of not just Alberta, but on a more general sense. Essentially, ‘culture’ wars are given primacy over real tangible material crises. Issues such as housing, food insecurity, job security all which was fundamentally ignored during the pandemic, and subsequently the apparent quest to preserve a failing single resource based economy is to blame. These pursuits which result in effectively no change to the material conditions of Albertans are somehow entertained by the media and popular culture at large. It is this document which highlights the ways in which culture wars largely serve to preserve the legitimacy of the current state of economic affairs, effectively creating a scapegoat to real tangible systemic change which is more than overdue.

That is precisely where I see the value in uploading this document to the archive, in that it highlights the absolute ignorance of our current crises within this province. Politicians are more willing to discuss a cartoon Bigfoot rather than the material conditions of the citizens they are meant to represent, and furthermore are ignorant to their survival in the midst of a pandemic.

Date (Dublin Core)

March 22, 2021

Creator (Dublin Core)

Max Fawcett

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Padraic Cohen

Event Identifier (Dublin Core)

HST580

Partner (Dublin Core)

Arizona State University

Type (Dublin Core)

News article

Link (Bibliographic Ontology)

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English News coverage
English Politics
English Emotion

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Canada
Alberta
Jason Kenny
United Conservative Party
War Room
culture war
oil sands

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

Canada
Alberta
Jason Kenny
United Conservative Party
War Room
culture war
oil sands

Collection (Dublin Core)

Canada

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

03/28/2021

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

04/04/2021
08/02/2022
09/10/2024

Item sets

This item was submitted on March 28, 2021 by Padraic Cohen using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: http://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

Click here to view the collected data.

New Tags

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